Читать книгу Awakening The Shifter - Jane Godman - Страница 12

Chapter 3

“Can I show you something?”

Sarange was so angry she wanted to barge past the man who spoke. She wanted to do a lot more than that. She wanted to eradicate anything to do with Khan from her life. If only it was that easy. Ever since she’d met him, it was as if he’d taken control of her thoughts as well as her body. For weeks now, she had been functioning only in relation to him. He was the first thing she thought of on waking, and the last image in her head at night. He occupied her whole attention in between, and then she dreamed of him while she slept. Her entire being burned with longing for this man. A man she had met once. A man she intensely disliked. It was the wildest, scariest, most wonderful feeling she had ever known.

Coming here today, knowing she would be seeing him again, had made her feel like a school kid with a crush. For days, she had been battling the butterflies in her stomach and the clamminess of her palms.

Will he remember the kiss? Does he wish it had ended differently? She had repeatedly tried to force her thoughts onto the most important thing. Can I persuade him to change his mind about collaborating?

When Khan had first walked into this meeting room, the roller coaster of her emotions was almost too much to bear. She had nearly convinced herself that her imagination was playing powerful tricks on her. She couldn’t possibly have fallen as fast and as hard for Khan as her body was telling her she had. The guy was an overbearing, conceited jackass. No woman in her right mind could find him attractive. Okay, his face and body were incredible...oh, heaven help me, I’ve been taken in by his pretty face and mouthwatering biceps.

Sarange had been at the pinnacle of fame for over a decade. If good looks and muscles were what she wanted, she could have taken her pick. And, now and then, that was what she had done. Brief, pleasant relationships that had ended without regret or recrimination. But what she felt for Khan? This wildness? She had no idea what it was. All she knew for sure was she had to fight it. If she didn’t, it would take over her life.

This issue with Radin and the documentary was a complication she could do without. Over the years, the Animals Alive Foundation had grown beyond her own desire to protect the endangered species about which she cared. Sarange’s driving passion had become a global nonprofit organization, her primary function. Recently, her singing and songwriting had taken second place to her role as a wildlife ambassador.

Even so, she couldn’t explain why she was so drawn to the plight of the blue wolf pack. What the hell is wrong with me? First there was this restless longing for Khan. Now she wanted to storm in and help a subspecies of wolf that was probably doomed anyway. There were bigger challenges facing the animal world. Ones that would attract far greater attention. Elephants, pandas, tigers...fight the sexy fights. It was no good. She didn’t understand why, but the blue wolves called to her. Sarange would do what she could to save them.

It was her desire to protect the blue wolves that had brought her face-to-face with Khan again. She tried to tell herself that was why she had flown from Los Angeles to New York for this meeting. It wasn’t out of any overwhelming desire to see him. And he had just rejected her. Again. She had created a situation in which he could storm out on her like a moody teenager...

She drew a deep breath and forced her focus back into the room and onto Ged Taverner. As he rose from his chair, Ged kept unfolding until his big, muscular body towered over her. As she looked up at him, it occurred to Sarange that she could have felt intimidated. Although her bodyguard was standing by the door, this guy looked like he could wrestle a bear with one arm tied behind his back. Instead, Ged radiated a curiously protective aura.

What was he saying? He wanted to show her something?

“I’m sorry. I don’t have time...”

“This won’t take long.” He placed a hand under her elbow, his touch gentle but firm. The sensation of being swept along by forces beyond her control took over again. What was it about these people? Ever since she had encountered Khan, her life hadn’t been her own. Did that extend to his whole entourage?

They left the meeting room and Ged led her to the elevator. As he gestured for her bodyguard to wait, Sarange tried another protest. “I’ve wasted enough time traveling to New York for a meeting that has proved pointless. I can’t see any reason to hang around.”

“Five minutes.” She capitulated, nodding to the guard to meet her at the car. Ged smiled as he pressed the button for the basement. “Thank you.”

After exiting the elevator, they followed a short corridor. “Although the members of the band come from all over the world, once Beast became famous, they all moved here to New York. We tried a number of different recording studios before we settled on this one.”

“If they come from all over the world, how did they get together?” Sarange didn’t want to be intrigued by Beast. Didn’t want anything to do with the world’s greatest rock band and its purring, strutting, infuriating frontman, but Ged’s words interested her in spite of herself.

“I brought them together.” Why did she sense a huge story lay behind that simple statement? In spite of their dynamic personalities, Beast didn’t give much away about their private lives. Biographical details about the band members were scarce. In the past, Sarange had curled her lip at what she believed was a publicity ploy. The enigmatic tough guys of rock. She wondered for the first time what they were hiding.

Ged held open a door, motioning for her to precede him. When Sarange stepped inside, she was in a recording booth. From behind a clear glass panel, she could see a small, circular stage. Khan was seated on a stool in its center. He had drawn his wild mane of red-gold hair back with a simple elastic band, and his head was bowed as he clutched a microphone to his chest. His whole attitude was despairing.

Sarange turned to regard Ged. This didn’t feel comfortable. It felt a lot like she was intruding on Khan’s privacy.

“I’ve known him to spend hours perfecting a single note.” Ged’s voice was quiet as he looked over her head at the lone figure on the other side of the soundproof glass. “This side of Khan doesn’t fit with his public image. The stage persona, the guy who’d laugh in the devil’s face? That takes a hell of a lot of hard work.”

He flicked a switch as he spoke and Khan’s voice filled the booth. The song wasn’t one of Beast’s. It was an old love song, with a sweet melody, haunting in its intensity. Khan didn’t apply any of his usual vocal fireworks to this performance. Alone, unaware of his audience, and with no backing music, he closed his eyes, pouring his heart into the song.

As she listened, tears burned the back of Sarange’s eyelids. What was it about this man? Where had this invisible thread that pulled her to him come from? And how the hell was she going to sever it? She didn’t know whether to be glad or sorry that Ged had shown her Khan had another side to him. Would it have been easier to walk away believing he was shallow and self-absorbed? Khan had given her no choice. She had to walk away. It was never going to be easy.

Ged waited until Khan had finished singing before he spoke. “His vocal range is unique. Khan can sing opera just as easily as rock.”

As if to demonstrate, Khan started to sing again. The same ballad with a slightly different emphasis. There was something rawer in the emotion this time. God, he could tell a story with that voice! The last version had made her think of unrequited love. This one was a whole lot hotter. It conjured up visions of steamy sex and crumpled sheets...and it made her whole body burn.

“Who is he?” She tilted her head back to look at Ged. The question, coming out of nowhere, surprised her.

Ged didn’t falter. “He is Khan.” Ged said it as though it clarified everything. And maybe it did. Khan was one of a kind, defying explanation. “This campaign you have with the blue wolves, is that because of your own heritage?”

“I certainly have an interest in their plight because I was born in Mongolia, but that’s not the only reason I want to help.” She still wasn’t sure why she felt so fiercely about this pack of wolves. Her homeland, heritage, Mongolian folklore...none of those things could quite account for the intensity of emotion this cause aroused in her.

“You must know that’s not what I meant.”

Sarange frowned. “What else could you possibly mean?”

Ged’s expression was unfathomable. It reminded her of the look in Khan’s eyes when he had called her “wolf girl” just before she initiated that devastating kiss. What is it with these people and wolves? Was it to do with the name Beast? Were they looking to use wolves for some sort of gimmick? Ged was staring at her as if she was an alien being. As if he couldn’t make up his mind what to do about her.

Enough was enough. Whatever his problem was, she really didn’t have time to spend analyzing it. On balance, she decided she was glad Ged had shown her this other side of Khan. Although her pride was still stinging, it helped to know he wasn’t the one-dimensional jerk of first appearances.

She turned toward the door. “You’re Khan’s friend. Why does he hate me?”

Ged took a last look at the lone figure. “Khan doesn’t really do friendship. And it’s not you he hates—” he flicked the switch, and the booth went silent “—it’s himself.”

* * *

Beast had won Best Band at the Rock the World Awards for the last two years. This year, when they burst onto the stage to receive the award for the third time, Khan looked out at the sea of faces in the vast audience with a feeling close to apathy. The great and good of the music industry were gathered under one roof to honor their own, but there was only one person he wanted to see. He already knew Sarange wasn’t there. If she’d been there, he’d have felt her.

They were in her town, yet she’d stayed away. It was her message to Khan. He knew she felt this invisible, unbreakable thread as powerfully as he did. By not attending this prestigious ceremony, she was showing him she was stronger than he was. She didn’t need to see him. Didn’t need the buzz that came from his nearness. This was what he’d wanted, yet the despair he felt was like a giant rock sitting on his chest. How could he miss what had never been his? All he knew was there was an aching hole in his life that could only be filled by Sarange. How was he ever going to learn to deal with this constant gnawing pain?

Beast was closing the award ceremony with a number from its new album. It was time to don his rock star persona and do what he did best...drive this crowd wild. Doing it when his heart had just been ripped out and his limbs felt like lead? That would be a new experience.

The way the band played together had always been creative and intuitive. Each member was individually talented, but when they came together they became so much more. Maybe it came down to what they’d all been through before they got together. Their music did the talking because their emotions had been shredded. From Khan’s raw yipping, screeching tones, through Diablo’s wild drumming to Finglas’s haunting bass lines, their unique sound pulsed with primal energy.

Physically they complemented each other perfectly as well. Each member of the band had his unique, onstage personality. Khan was all strutting, purring egomania. Diablo was solitary, stealthy and quick tempered. There was Torque with his quick-fire restlessness and Dev, in contrast, who remained cool and aloof. Finglas was the newest addition to the band. The young Irish werewolf had replaced Nate Zilar, the long-standing bass guitarist, and was just finding his place among the big personalities. Finglas often appeared detached, but he could raise as much hell as Khan when the mood took him. As a cast of characters, the band came together with a power that couldn’t be manufactured. Beasts in the true sense of the word, they were one of a kind.

Behind them, giant LED screens played recordings of their signature three-sixes logo, roaring flames and the snarling jaws of wild animals. The cheering audience enthusiastically demonstrated the horned sign of the beast by pointing their fingers at the sides of their heads. The number ended on a wild note when Khan climbed to the top of the lighting installation at the rear of the stage, hanging perilously by one hand as he howled out the final verse.

He sprang back onto the stage, landing in a crouch at Torque’s feet.

“And that, my friend, is how to bring the house down,” Torque said, as they walked off the stage. “I thought it might be literally. That set didn’t look very stable.”

Khan shrugged. “Remember Moscow?”

Dev caught up to them. “How could we forget? Although I blame Ged for booking us into a theater with balconies. He must have known you’d climb into them.”

“How was I to know that building was unsafe?” Khan scowled.

Torque draped an arm around each of their shoulders. “Those were the days. Collapsing balconies. Irate Russians. Hot women. Cold vodka.”

“Talking of which—” Dev steered them toward the bar at the back of the vast auditorium “—Ged is waiting for us. Best behavior, guys. The press is out in force tonight, always looking for the money shot of Khan in a compromising position.”

Khan cursed under his breath. He wasn’t in the mood for socializing, and he was never in the mood to have his behavior regulated. Over time, he had learned to strike a balance between his human and tiger personalities. On occasions like this, he drew on his human need for company, suppressing his cat desire for solitude. And there were usually compensations. On a night like tonight, he could generally find an outlet for his wild sexual appetite. The problem was, his body had decided it had found his mate, meaning his desire for sex with anyone other than Sarange had deserted him. It was a highly inconvenient side effect to an already out of control situation.

Until now, Khan’s sexual instincts had mirrored those of a tiger in the wild. He supposed humans would call it promiscuity. Tigers would call it common sense. Find a female, have sex with her as often as possible within a short time frame until she was carrying his cubs, then move on to the next female. It was a simple rule for big cats in nature to ensure fertilization. As a human, of course, Khan was meticulous about using protection to ensure that didn’t happen. Thankfully, his inner tiger didn’t take over completely.

Monogamy wasn’t part of the tiger social structure, but despite his inner cat, Khan wasn’t all wild animal. He didn’t get to be that lucky. Being a shifter, he got to live within a set of expectations that applied to all shifters. Ones that said he needed a mate. It seemed there was no right of appeal. Even though there were so many things wrong in this case. The mate the Fates had selected for him was the wrong species. She didn’t know she was a shifter. And don’t get me started on who I am...

Khan bit back a smile. Monogamy without a partner? Wasn’t that called celibacy? That should keep Ged happy. At least there would be no sensational kiss-and-tell stories tomorrow morning.

“Come and join me, Tiger Boy.” As if in answer to his thoughts, Ged appeared at Khan’s side. He was carrying a bottle of brandy and two glasses. It was always serious when Ged got the brandy bottle out.

By some miracle, they found a quiet corner table and Ged sloshed brandy into the glasses. Around them, celebrities were getting drunker and noisier. Finglas was locked in an embrace with one member of a girl band, while her bandmate wrapped her arms around his waist from behind.

“That guy is after your reputation as the bad boy of Beast.” Ged tilted his glass toward Finglas.

“The way I feel right now he’s welcome to it.” Khan leaned back in his seat, draining his glass in one gulp.

“Does this newfound apathy have anything to do with Sarange?”

Khan stared at his manager, the man who had rescued him from a cage and given him his life back. For long, unblinking seconds he said nothing. Then he sighed. If Ged wanted information from him, he would get it. He might as well cut out the part where he tried to resist.

“You’ve heard some crazy shifter stories in your lifetime, Ged. Shall I tell you a new one? One that takes screwed up to a whole new level?” He dropped his voice, glancing around to make sure they were the only ones who could hear. “How about I tell you the story of a tiger who fell for a wolf? If that wasn’t bad enough, it gets even crazier. It turns out she didn’t know she was a wolf.”

Khan reached for the brandy, planning to pour himself another glass. To hell with it. He drank long and hard straight from the bottle, wiping the neck on the tail of his designer shirt when he finished. “I know.”

Khan’s eyes narrowed. “You know what?”

“I’ve met Sarange. I know she’s a werewolf.” Ged took the brandy from Khan and tilted the bottle to his own lips. “And I agree with your assessment. She has no idea what she is.”

Khan slumped down in his seat. “Has that ever happened before?” If anyone was going to know the answer to that question, it would be Ged.

“Not that I’m aware. Violet, Nate’s wife, lost her memory for a while.” Violet was a werewolf who had joined them on tour recently. When she and Nate got married, he had left the band. “Part of that memory loss meant she forgot how to shift. That was temporary, but this is different. Sarange seems unaware that she has ever been a werewolf.”

“What I don’t understand is how she can be a shifter yet not want to shift. It’s the most powerful urge we have. Right up there with breathing and sex.”

Ged had been about to take another drink, but he lowered the bottle. “Judging by some of the situations I’ve had to bail you out of over the years, I’d say sex is the strongest urge you have.”

Khan stretched his long legs in front of him. “I’m a cat. We enjoy the hunt.”

“Yet you’re not hunting tonight?” Ged raised a brow.

Before Khan could tell him to butt out, the music was lowered and the sound turned up on the big screens that were located on each wall. “You might want to listen to this, guys.” Torque came to lean against the wall next to them.

The screens were all showing the same news story. The announcer’s voice filled the room. “We’re returning to our main story. Earlier this evening a group of four men broke into the Los Angeles home of singer, songwriter and animal rights activist Sarange—”

Khan was on his feet in an instant, his heart rate kicking up to explosive new levels. “What the...?”

“—although the men fled when the singer’s bodyguards came to her aid, Sarange sustained minor injuries in the attack. It is believed the intention was kidnapping—”

Khan didn’t hear any more. He couldn’t think straight. Someone had tried to abduct Sarange. She had been hurt. His mate had been in danger and he hadn’t been there to protect her.

Ged’s hand was firm on his shoulder. “Go to her.”